Do you fail to accomplish important tasks because you get distracted? Why is it so hard to be disciplined?
Discipline doesn’t originate from some special power or a higher force, it originates in you. When you fail to stay disciplined, it’s because you’re resisting any kind of self-growth.
Check out the psychological reasons why discipline isn’t always easy to maintain.
Why Discipline Fails Us
One reason why it is so hard to be disciplined is that we feel unmotivated. Life’s relentless difficulties can make us feel like our strategies for self-improvement have failed to help. We may also just feel exhausted and unconfident.
(Shortform note: Some experts say that to stay motivated to achieve your goals, it’s important to be driven by intrinsic motivation (your drive to do what you innately enjoy). This is more sustainable than being driven by extrinsic motivation (external reward or punishment). Some experts say that intrinsic motivation and discipline are required to reach your long-term goals and achieve long-lasting health. In this view, discipline is essential to perform the daily habits that lead to your goals. However, you should try to form habits that you’re intrinsically motivated to do because these are shown to be the most sustainable. For example, if your goal is to lose weight and you enjoy community atmospheres, consider joining a local running club.)
If our strategies pay off and we succeed in achieving our goals, we may think we’ve grown past the need for discipline. Phil Stutz and Barry Michels warn that once we feel like we’ve reached a good place in life, it’s easy to get too comfortable and abandon the healthy habits that brought us there in the first place.
(Shortform note: According to some experts, when you’re trying to replace old habits with healthier habits, it’s important to stick to your new routine to keep the old habits from coming back. Research shows that our old habits are deeply coded into us, even long after we’ve overwritten them with new behaviors. So, if you abandon your disciplined routine after feeling like you don’t need it any longer, you’ll become vulnerable to reverting back to your old habits.)
Finally, Stutz and Michels explain that the main reason we lose sight of our goals and let discipline fade is because we falsely believe our lives are eternal. This causes us to take each present moment for granted because we feel like there’ll always be more time to pursue our goals. When we believe that there’s always another tomorrow to get started on our goals, it’s easier to justify slacking off in the present.
(Shortform note: In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter suggests that Western society is particularly detached from death and lost in an illusion of permanence. He explains that death is uncomfortable to think about, so Westerners try to distract themselves from confronting it with materialistic pleasures. For example, Americans work an average of 47 hours each week and take pride in acquiring material things like big houses and new cars. One expert argues that the materialistic philosophy linked to Americans’ denial of death is partly based on expectations that modern technologies can extend our lifespans. For example, the US is home to 28 of the world’s 38 anti-aging labs.)
